Marin schools officials cheer passage of Proposition 30

Marin schools officials breathed a sigh of relief Wednesday after the passage of Proposition 30, expressing gratitude to Californians for taxing themselves more to help fill a gaping state budget hole.

However, they acknowledged the initiative would go only partway to reversing years of cuts to education.

"The thing that is most exciting and encouraging is that voters here in California showed their support of education," said Karen Maloney, chief financial officer for the Novato Unified School District, which would have suffered a $3.3 million mid-year cut had the initiative failed.

Proposition 30, a $6 billion-a-year package of tax increases that Gov. Jerry Brown campaigned furiously for in the final weeks of the campaign, passed with a 54 percent majority, averting major cuts to public education.

"Hopefully this will provide security to many districts across the state and they will be more financially secure," said Paul Johnson, superintendent of the Mill Valley School District, which also won approval of a local parcel tax hike Tuesday.

Proposition 30 raises income taxes on the wealthy and sales taxes for everyone else. Most of the money is earmarked for K-12 schools and community colleges, which have suffered due to lack of stable financial support.

Because the initiative was factored into the state budget, its failure would have triggered nearly $8 million in mid-year education cuts in Marin, the county's share of billions statewide.

"We're very pleased that it passed," said Jim Cerreta, business manager for the Ross Valley School District. "It means that our budgeted revenue can be kept intact."

While the Ross Valley district will avoid $900,000 in new cuts, Proposition 30 will not restore other state funding, which has dropped by more than 20 percent since 2007.

"It's not providing new money to us that we did not have before," Cerreta said. "It is preventing further cuts."

The tax measure won its strongest support among voters in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. It passed in Marin with 68 percent of the vote; Santa Clara County with 62 percent; Alameda, 73 percent; Contra Costa County, 59 percent; Santa Cruz, 73 percent; and San Francisco, 76.8 percent.

The tax measure held a precarious position in hours leading up to the election, with support below 50 percent, which typically dooms tax initiatives. Brown lobbied hard on Monday to boost support for the measure, traveling to five cities, from San Francisco to San Diego.

Supporters said passage of the initiative signaled a symbolic end to the tax revolt of 1978, when voters adopted Proposition 13's limits on property taxes.

"Californians looked at the state of our schools and said: 'They are fundamental to who we are, and our future. We need to support public education, because it is a huge driver of our progress,'" said UCLA history professor Jon Christensen, former director of Stanford's Bill Lane Center for the American West. "That is a very, very heartening change."

The measure faced opposition funding from outside the state, when an Arizona group called Americans for Responsible Leadership donated millions of dollars to fight against it.

But Proposition 30 had several advantages, said opponents.

"It had several factors working in its favor," said Aaron McLear of the No on 30 campaign, who was former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's press secretary. "One was the five-to-one fundraising advantage — the 'yes' had $57 million, while the 'no' had $13 million. Also, there was the power of a very effective bully pulpit by the governor that controlled the narrative. And the infrastructure of the Democratic Party and public employee unions was a completely unmatched political machine. We don't have anything like that on our side."